Showing posts with label El Capo 3. Show all posts
Showing posts with label El Capo 3. Show all posts

Monday, May 26, 2014

TELENOVELA WATCH: 'El Señor de los Cielos' Season 2 Premieres; Plus, 'La Viuda Negra,' 'El Capo 3,' 'Camelia La Texana,' Favorites for the Week and More

A scene from LA VIUDA NEGRA (weeknights at 10 p.m. ET on UniMás) illustrates the root of my antipathy for the so-called narco-novelas. The title anti-heroine is at a cemetery to visit the grave of her mother. Police arrive at the cemetery to arrest her for the murder of a teenager her gang kidnapped and shot dead. The supposed suspense of the scene is whether the anti-heroine will escape. In a ludicrous showdown with the police, her right-hand man manages to shoot dead six to eight officers. The show expects me to be relieved the anti-heroine has escaped, thrilled at the ingenuity and skill with which the henchman killed the officers, but my only feelings are of repulsion, my sympathies lying solely with the murdered police officers.

Good writers and producers can find entry points into this material to make it more palatable. One of the first full-hog narco-novelas and one of the best, SIN TETAS NO HAY PARAÍSO, adopted a “cautionary tale” approach to the material. It glamorizes the narco lifestyle, but that glamorization is presented through the eyes of a stupid teenage girl, a framing device that allows authorial detachment for comment and criticism. The story itself contrasts the girl’s fantasies of a narco life with the grim and destructive realities when she actually becomes a part of that world.